But Mrs. Birtwell did not feel as though she had done her whole duty in the case.  A pressure was left upon her feelings.  What of the father?  How was it faring with him?  She hesitated about recalling the servant until it was too late.  Ethel took the letter, and without opening it went away.

A new disquiet came from this cause, and Mrs. Birtwell could not shake it off.  Happily for her relief, Mr. Elliott, whose interest in the fallen man was deep enough to take him to the Home that morning, called upon her with the most gratifying intelligence.  He had seen Mr. Ridley and held a long interview with him, the result of which was a strong belief that the new influences under which he had been brought would be effectual in saving him.

“I have faith in these influences,” said the clergyman, “because I understand their ground and force.  Peter would have gone down hopelessly in the Sea of Galilee if he had depended on himself alone.  Only the divine Saviour, on whom he called and in whom he trusted, could save him; and so it is in the case of men like Mr. Ridley who try to walk over the sea of temptation.  Peter’s despairing cry of ‘Save, Lord, or I perish,’ must be theirs also if they would keep from sinking beneath the angry waters, and no one ever calls sincerely upon God for help without receiving it.  That Mr. Ridley is sincere I have no doubt, and herein lies my great confidence.”

At the end of a week Blanche returned from her wedding-tour, and was received by her parents with love and tenderness instead of reproaches.  These last, besides being utterly useless, would have pushed the young husband away from them and out of the reach of any saving influences it might be in their power to exercise.

The hardest trial now for Mrs. Birtwell was the separation from Blanche, whose daily visits were a poor substitute for the old constant and close companionship.  If there had not been a cloud in the sky of her child’s future, with its shadow already dimming the brightness of her young life, the mother’s heart would have still felt an aching and a void, would have been a mourner for love’s lost delights and possessions that could nevermore return.  But to all this was added a fear and, dread that made her soul grow faint when thought cast itself forward into the coming time.

The Rev. Mr. Brantley Elliott was a wiser and truer man than some who read him superficially imagined.  His churchmanship was sometimes narrower than his humanity, while the social element in his character, which was very strong, often led him to forget in mixed companies that much of what he might say or do would be judged of by the clerical and not the personal standard, and his acts and words set down at times as favoring worldliness and self-indulgence.  Harm not unfrequently came of this.  But he was a sincere Christian man, deeply impressed with the sacredness of his calling and earnest in his desire to lead heavenward the people to whom he ministered.